iStoryTime: The Brave Monkey Pirate - Quirky, Quick - PERFECT!

I saw a post not long ago on Twitter from App Develop @iStorytime promoting their kids story application. I thought it was a great idea and posted something about it to @gabbaphone twitter account. @iStoryTime wrote me back and gave me a free promo code to check out one of their story apps. I felt a little weird reviewing a free game, i'm all about the journalistic impartiality don't you know, so I went ahead and bought one for $1.99. I went for 'The Brave Monkey Pirate" based on the funny title and cute art.

I checked it out myself before handing it over to Wormie and there were some controls for audio (ie. do you want a childs voice or adult voice) and some other basic set up controls. It was nothing you need to do before using the App with your child but i was curious at how robust the reader controls were - the answer is, not very. I went through the story myself and found it a quirky and cute. Its about a little monkey who takes a magical (read trippy) journeym and along the way he finds a way to make trips to the doctor visit less scary. The minimalist art is cute and cool, and the little parable going on about being brave when you go to the doctor is light enough that it does not come off as a "Oh my go could Berenstein Bears be less subtle" life lesson. A subsequent search turned the book up on Scribd and the Robert Hayes, the authors, site http://www.bluebison.net/. My only complaint about the application was that i wish the page turning functioned more like the Kindle application - but this item really had no impact on the 20 something page iBook.

I gave the App to Wormie thinking it would be a short trial. For what ever reason i figured she would get bored quickly and ask for a different game. I was SO wrong. Wormie is just starting to get into writing letters and has been pouring over books from the library. I can only assume that this new found interest in the written word helped spur her obsession with "The Brave Monkey Pirate." When I handed Wormie the App she figured out the page scrolling right away. She also liked the audio feature, which i know because when i turned it off after another viewing, she complained how the App was broken. When she got to the end of the story, she rewound all the pages and started over. She read and re-read the story for a full 10-20 minutes, which must have been about 10 reads of the story. The "pirate story" as she called it, has became the top requested app on my phone until I downloaded some letter tracing apps.

Overall - i was surprised, and pleased, at how much she really liked it. I believe the combination of quality art, cute story, professional audio, and her new found interest in "reading" sealed the deal. My only complaint is that at $1.99, for what is a considerably short story, this is an expensive proposition. However, if I broke down how much i've paid on a per viewing basis, I'm sure its beat most of the childrens books we buy at our LBS, Kepplers, at about $.10 a view and going down! I have been meaning to buy another story for some time to see how much is the form vs. content but until then Wormie still likes to log a few reads of "The Brave Monkey Pirate" while we wait for our breakfast every Sunday.


Age Range: 3-5
Difficulty: 3/5 (5 being easy)
Look & Feel :4/5 (5 being cool)
Parent Helper: 5/5 (5 being helpful)